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Women in Sport 2017 – Sarah O’Shea

Sport for Business, in partnership with Liberty Insurance, is publishing our third annual list of the 50 Most Influential Women in Irish Sport.

This is not about Women’s sport, it is about the influence that women are wielding across all sport. We will identify leaders on and off the field of play. They will include those who are role models in terms of their abilities on and off the field of play. They will come from teams and individual sports, from sponsorship partners, from the media, from the administrative corridors of power and from places where influence may be subtle but no less powerful.

Sarah O’Shea

Sarah O’Shea took over as Honorary General Secretary of the Olympic Council of Ireland in February 2017 after one of the most difficult and divisive periods in Irish sporting history.

Alongside President Sarah Keane she has played a key role in ensuring not only the survival of the organisation but its reemergence as a viable and vibrant part of the Irish sports administration ecosytem.

She will play a key role in the selection of a new CEO for the organisation and that should then give time to devote to SOS Consult which she established prior to the Olympic story unfolding as a way to help sporting organisations in Ireland and further afield navigate the Governance path that is now demanded in the sector.

The past year will have bolstered her credentials in that area though they were already strong having served as Deputy CEO of the Football Association of Ireland for ten years until the end of 2015; as a former Chair and Board Member of the Federation of Irish Sport and as a mentor on UEFA’s Women in Leadership programme.

There have been other roles as well, relating to her original qualification as a solicitor and the clarity of thought and purpose she brings to projects is one that has served and continues to serve irish sport incredibly well.